Movember

One of my favorite things that happened on a routine basis with my teammates at Ohio State was when they would start sentences with either the words “real talk” or the much more entertaining and hilarious phrase “on some real s**t.” By starting their sentence with one of these phrases, they are basically telling everyone, “I was just messing around with everything else I have ever said in my life. That all means nothing compared to what I’m about to say, so please give me your undivided attention because I’m going to talk about something that is more serious and more important than global warming, AIDS, and Wrestlemania combined.” What made this so funny to me was that each and every time one of my teammates led with one of those phrases, they always would inevitably follow it up by saying something that couldn’t possibly be more irrelevant. Because of this, it was common for one of them to walk into our locker room after practice, get everyone’s attention, and then say something along the lines of, “Real talk, Martin had me rollin back in the day.” Sometimes, if they really wanted to drive the point home, they’d even throw in “and that’s on my momma” for good measure. Some people just know how to eloquently present an argument.

Having said all of that, it’s time for some real talk. My favorite month of the year, Movember, starts on Monday, which means on Monday it’s time to quite literally separate the men from the boys. Those of you who have been members of the Trillion Man March for awhile surely remember Movember from last year. If you’re new to the party, though, and don’t know about Movember, check out my blog post from last year that explained everything. Here are a few important paragraphs for those of you who are too lazy to simply click on a link:

It was brought to my attention by a few members of the Trillion Man March that the month of November marks a very important time for lovers of mustaches and haters of prostate cancer. That’s because November has been dubbed “Movember” by a couple of Australians, which may initially sound like a month-long tribute to GUTS announcer, Mo Quirk, but is actually an event that was started to raise prostate cancer awareness (apparently “mo” is an Australian slang term for mustache). I thought Movember was just another event started by guys in high school who wanted an excuse to grow out their peach fuzz without upsetting their moms, but as it turns out, Movember is actually the biggest charity event in the world that is targeted exclusively for men, having raised over $47 million to date. It’s like the men’s equivalent of Race For The Cure, except instead of using your legs all you have to use are your upper lip hair follicles.

Even though one out of every six American men will get prostate cancer at some point in time, it should be noted that I can’t think of anyone close to me who has ever had the disease. I’m not trying to get you to care because prostate cancer has personally destroyed my life by inflicting the people around me. It’s not like that at all. I’m just trying to get you to care because Movember provides a great opportunity to have an excuse to grow a mustache and also provides a great opportunity to raise awareness for a good cause. You can become a better person simply by growing out your mustache. Call me crazy but I think this might be the epitome of a win-win situation.

In short, Movember is an initiative to raise awareness and money for prostate cancer research. Prostate cancer is to men what breast cancer is to women, only more people care about breast cancer because, well, breast cancer affects boobs and everybody loves boobs. Since there isn’t as much of a focus on prostate cancer in this country as there is on breast cancer, the main goal with Movember is basically to show people that a man’s prostate can be just as sexy as a nice pair of hooters. Naturally, this is done by growing mustaches.

So here’s the plan. Since statistics say that at least 500 people reading this will end up getting prostate cancer at some point in their lives, I’ve decided that the Trillion Man March needs to do its part to kick prostate cancer in the nuts and give it the fiercest powerbomb of all-time. This can be accomplished two different ways.

Most of you are either in high school/college or have recently graduated college, which is another way of saying that most of you are ridiculously broke. Shoot, there are probably some of you that have been out of school for years and are still broke because you either have spending habits like my former OSU teammate, Daequan Cook (I heard rumors that he bought 13 flat screen TVs for just his living room immediately after signing his first NBA contract), or you have more likely fallen victim to the terrible economy. This first way of helping out doesn’t apply to you, so you can stop paying attention for a second. But, for those of you who have somehow found a way to successfully pay off all those student loans that went towards countless Trapper Keepers and Lisa Frank products, this first way of helping out just might be for you. The ultimate goal with Movember is to obviously raise money for prostate cancer research, so if you are in a financially stable place, you can help make this happen by donating whatever your heart desires. One member of the TMM, Matthew, took it upon himself to make a group on the official Movember site, so if you do want to make a donation, please click on this link, fill out the information to join Matthew’s group, and donate like your life depends on it (because it very well could someday).

As for those of us who aren’t rolling in the benjamins (the cool kids still say that, right?), we get to take on prostate cancer in a much more exciting way by growing out our mustaches for an entire month (it goes without saying that it’s perfectly fine to both donate and grow a stache). I’ve already pointed out that a majority of the Trillion Man March falls into the “dudes who are broke, man” demographic (myself included), which means that a majority of you will probably be taking part in Movember just by growing your stache. And since mustache growing will be the main way the TMM participates in Movember, I’ve decided to have a contest to establish who in the TMM is the manliest man of all. The only rules are as follows:

1. You must shave your entire face (excluding eyebrows) down to the skin on October 31st. This is on an honor system. If you know you can’t grow an awesome stache, it’s ok. Just do the best you can. But whatever you do, don’t be a jealous doucher and cheat.
2. Your stache can’t connect to itself or your sideburns anywhere on your face. If this happens, you have either a goatee or a beard, which means you no longer have a stache.
3. The best mustache doesn’t necessarily mean the longest mustache. Creativity is taken into account, so doing something like this is every bit as impressive as growing a Sam Elliott stache (ok, so not really but you get what I’m saying here).
4. Send me pictures of your stache throughout the entire month of Movember and I’ll post them on the blog as we move closer to judgment day on November 30th.
5. The ultimate winner will be decided by a TMM vote and will win a case of Barbasol shaving cream for being so manly, as well as a free shirt (your choice between either CLUB TRIL or FUNDAMENTALS MONTAGE!!!) for being so awesome.

Just so you’re mentally prepared, this is what you’ll be up against:

“Who wants a mustache ride?”

Based on past experience, I know that many of you work for companies or bosses who suck and won’t let you grow out facial hair of any kind for any reason. The unfortunate reality about the world we live in is that some people just don’t get it. If the economy was better I would coerce you all to participate anyway, but getting fired seems like an awful idea right now, so I won’t give you too much trouble for not participating. I truly am sorry. Fortunately, most of the TMM is comprised of college-aged guys whose only responsibilities are to skip class and get drunk, so they can pick up the slack.

Obviously the women of the TMM also can’t take part in the mustache contest because you all can’t grow mustaches (unless, of course, you’re an elderly librarian or lunch lady). If you have your heart set on doing something for Movember, I suggest you make a pledge to yourself to only party with guys who have mustaches all month. If you’re a high school girl, refuse to give your class ring or go to the school dance with any guy who doesn’t at least have a little peach fuzz. If you’re a girl in college, take a stand and only let guys with staches do body shots off of you (that would probably feel better for you anyway – not that I’d know or anything). You get the idea.

Finally, I thought I would address something that might be giving a few of you cold feet. Some of you might be asking yourself, “How exactly does growing out my mustache for a month do anything to help prostate cancer research?” Good question. Your mustache serves as a walking advertisement to raise awareness for prostate cancer. A lot of men don’t know all that much about the disease, so half of the battle is just spreading the word. Here’s an example of how your mustache can achieve just that:

Friend: “Dude, nice mustache. You look like a pedophile that molests little kids.”

You: “A) I’m trying to raise awareness for prostate cancer by celebrating my manhood, and B) Your redundancy makes it obvious to me that you have no idea what the word ‘pedophile’ means.”

Friend: “Oh my bad, I didn’t know you worked for the grammar police. And who cares about prostate cancer? Getting rid of breast cancer is obviously much more important. Last time I checked, I’ve never gotten a pants-tent from looking at Pam Anderson’s prostates.”

You: “You are the single dumbest person I’ve ever met in my life. You should care about prostate cancer because it is the most prevalent cancer for men and affects millions of guys all over the world. It should be more important to you than breast cancer since, ya know, you’re a guy which means you actually have a chance of getting prostate cancer. Sure breast cancer research is important, but you’re never going to have to worry about getting breast cancer since dudes don’t have boobs. Well, except for Tony over there.”

(NOTE: I know that guys have breasts and can get breast cancer. Just go with me on this one.)

Tony: “Ha. Ha. Real funny. Dick. For your information, I’ve started a new diet that is actually working really well for me.”

Friend: “Oh really? What do you call it? The FATkins diet?”

You: (laughing) (high five your friend) “Good one, dude. Yeah, Tony, sitting on your ass playing Halo every day and falling asleep to anime porn every night isn’t much of a diet.”

Tony: “You guys are jerks. I’m offended and I’m leaving.”

Friend: “I would say, ‘Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out’ but chances are you actually need that to happen cause it will help you get unstuck after you get your enormous hips wedged in the doorframe.”

Tony: “I hate you both. While I’m gone, I suggest you both go die.”

You: “Tony. Got. Served.”

Friend: “Yeah, we totally served him. What a doucher. Look. He left his Halo game paused. We should go play it and ruin it for him. And maybe you can tell me more about this prostate cancer thing you were talking about earlier.”

You: “Deal.”

Real talk, Tony sucks. And that’s on my momma. __________________________________________________

After I called out the walk-on community with my last blog post, tons of walk-ons around the country emailed me to sign up for The Belt. This is very encouraging, but I still think we need more guys. So again, please email me if you are a Division I men’s basketball walk-on. Even if you aren’t eligible for The Belt, you can still help out by writing a Facebook message or something to the walk-ons for your favorite basketball team that will let them know about this awesome contest.

(I know that paragraph was copied and pasted from last time but it still applies, so shut up. Plus, I’m pretty sure it’s perfectly fine to plagiarize your own work. If it’s not, I should probably give back my college degree.) __________________________________________________

Your awesome YouTube was sent in to me by Evan T. (no, not The Villain). There’s your shout-out, Evan. And here’s your video.

Proud To Be An American But Even Prouder To Be A Buckeye,

Mark Titus

Club Trillion Founder